


torn

by foxmagpie



Series: little gifts [20]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sexual Tension, Shooting Guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 05:24:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20384389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: Beth & Rio have gun practice, and Beth calls him a shitty teacher. Beth finds it difficult to propose the Kostra deal to Peter.





	torn

_ I’m here. _

Beth’s phone vibrates and she picks it up to see the message from Rio. It’s Sunday, a full week after he’d cancelled their gun lesson and disappeared into her yard for “dinner plans,” whatever _that_ was—a full week since they’ve spoken at _all_. Beth bristles. 

What does he mean he’s _ here_? He hadn’t even told her whether they were still _ on_—and usually they meet at the warehouse. 

_ Maybe he’s _ finally _ come to follow up on Kostra, _ Beth thinks, annoyed. He’d made such a big deal out of watching her meeting with Peter, and then he’d apparently left early and never bothered to check in after Jane interrupted their conversation. 

And what if she hadn’t been home? _ Again_? He’d scowled last weekend when asking her where she was. She’d told him a half truth and said errands (technically scoping out the toy shop _ had _ been an errand of sorts—but she didn’t think the few hours that the kids played with Legos while she and Peter reminisced about their own time spent in the same shop really counted). 

She peeks into the backyard from the kitchen but doesn’t see him, so she walks to the living room to see Rio’s car illuminated under a street lamp. 

Pocketing her phone, she decides not to respond while she gathers up her things and finds her shoes. 

_ Let him be annoyed, _she thinks recklessly. It’s not like she isn’t brimming with irritation also. 

* * *

So that’s how they get halfway across town in a car together before either one of them says anything. Rio’s jaw is tight and, besides the hardened glance he’d given her when she’d slipped in the car, he hasn’t looked at her at all. 

It’s a competition now, she knows, to see which one of them breaks first and speaks. Beth’s _ determined _ that it’s not going to be her. She’s got all sorts of things she’d like to say to him, but it will _ not _ be her. 

Beth tries very hard to tamp down how desperately she does (and at the same time doesn’t) want to pry to see he went on a date last Sunday. Her eyes flit around the car, as if maybe there’d be some sort of clue left behind if he were seeing someone—or, more likely, _ someones_. But of course there’s nothing. Rio’s car is spotless. 

Mind in overdrive, Beth tries to imagine what the hell he might be thinking. It’s so hard to get a read on him even when he _ is _ speaking, so this is pretty much impossible—a frustrated huff escapes her lips before she realizes it’s happening. 

Rio turns toward her, eyebrow raised in question, and Beth ignores him, choosing instead to look out the window at the darkened buildings that they whip past. 

“Somethin’ you wanna say?” Rio asks, voice dull and decidedly bored. 

“No,” Beth snaps, and then regrets it, because if Rio’s smirk is anything to go by, she’s not winning with this route, either. 

They drive through two more lights before Beth says, “You know, it would’ve been nice to know we were apparently still on for tonight. What if I needed a babysitter?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t,” Rio answers, and Beth instantly knows that he must have some sort of tab on her to know the kids’ schedule. She feels anger burn under her skin at the same time that heat pools at her center at the idea of being unknowingly _ watched _ by him—and the latter feeling only exacerbates the former as she becomes furious with herself for finding some strange pleasure in the idea. 

“Are you even going to _ ask _ me about setting up the toy shop for Kostra?”

“Nah,” Rio replies as soon as the last word is out of her mouth. Beth glares at him, and Rio keeps his eyes on the road. “I mean, if you’d had anythin’ interestin’ to report, you woulda done it already, yeah? So I figure you ain’t got nothin’ to tell me that I haven’t already figured out.”

Indignant, Beth opens her mouth to refute him, but she comes up with nothing. 

Rio scoffs a little. There’s some amusement in it, some smugness in being right, and Beth seethes.

“I’m gonna need you to work a li’l harder, though,” Rio adds, and he steals a look at her. Beth feels the blush tingling across her chest. “Faster, too.”

“Look, I can’t just ask him outright. He’s not like you,” Beth spits, and she sees Rio’s fingers twitch. “If we move too quickly, we’ll scare him off—”

“Yeah, see, I ain’t too worried about whether he's scared,” Rio says, shrugging one shoulder. “If flirtin’s not workin’, there are other methods.” 

Beth flushes.

“I’ll take it from here—”

_ “Don’t,” _ Beth says, cutting him off with such conviction that Rio sucks his teeth in response. His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “This is _ my _ friend and we’re doing it _ my _ way.” 

She doesn’t know why it works, but it does. Rio’s silent for a full minute before he says, voice clipped, “You got a month. Then we doin’ it _ my _ way.”

* * *

“Lean forward,” Rio demands sharply from a chair about ten feet away from Beth where he perches and watches her like a hawk. “No. Less.”

The warehouse is bright, large, and mostly empty. Rio has put up a silhouette practice target along one wall, and behind it is a large rubber sheet that the bullets embed into so that there’s no ricochet. The air is cold, but Beth feels stuffy under Rio’s scrutiny. 

“Don’t lock your arms,” he reminds her gruffly. Beth hears a short beep and she looks to her right to see Rio pull his phone out of his pocket. His fingers glide across the screen and, without even looking back up at her, he commands, “Make your shot.”

Beth grits her teeth. These lessons weren’t going well before (no surprise, since they’d all taken place when they were barely talking), and now it’s been a few weeks between Legoland and the mysterious dinner, and Beth seems to be getting no better—in fact, she’s maybe worse. She’s frustrated because knowing Boomer’s still out there _ somewhere _ makes Beth feel like this is all the more urgent and necessary, but Rio’s patience seems to be thinning. 

Carefully lining up the sights, Beth aims for the head of the silhouette, but when her finger pulls on the trigger, she’s unable to keep the gun perfectly steady. She knows as soon as she feels the bullet fly out of the chamber that she’s missed. 

“You can’t flinch.” 

“I _ know_,” Beth says, rubbing her ear. Shooting is so _ loud. _

“So don’t do it.”

“It’s not as easy as just _ saying _ it,” Beth retorts.

“What you want me to do? Shoot the gun for you?” Rio snaps.

“Maybe!”Beth says, voice high. “I want you to _ show me_! You just—just bark around orders and expect that I know should be able to do it perfectly. I want to learn, but you’re—you’re a _ shit _ teacher.”

Rio runs a hand along his jaw, and Beth’s breath hitches before he stuns her by saying, “Fine.” 

Getting up, he pockets the phone and walks over to her, pulling his own gun out of his waistband. When he lifts his shirt, Beth catches a glimpse of his skin just above his hip and gulps. The golden metal in his hand glints in the warehouse light. Parking himself right next to her, Beth can feel Rio’s frustration ripple off his body. She stares intently at him as he seamlessly settles himself into a posture that is somehow relaxed and confident. It’s magnetic, this mixture he always wields of power and grace. Beth watches as the muscles in his arm shift when he pulls the trigger and _ one—two—three _ bullets erupt from the gun. The shots ring loudly in her ears, and she turns to look at the sheet. The holes are all in the head, less than a quarter of an inch apart. _ Perfect. _

Beth licks her lips unconsciously and takes a step backward from him. Rio tilts his head at her like, _ There. Happy? _

“Um. Okay. Thanks,” Beth fumbles, trying to regain some semblance of control. She’s _ mad _ at him—it shouldn’t be this easy for him to unravel her. (Not to mention the fact that she shouldn’t be unraveled by his prowess in shooting someone in the head—because she knows it’s not _ usually _ a thin sheet of paper that’s on the receiving end of his bullets). 

Beth tries to mimic the stance he’d had, her right foot behind her left, her legs shoulder width apart. She holds the gun out in front of her with both hands curled around the handle. Beth’s eyes keep darting over to his, checking for his approval, but Rio’s face is blank as his eyes slide up and down her form. Her lip twitches as Rio takes a step toward her. 

He ends up behind her—she can feel his breath on her neck—and then she feels his fingers press down on her shoulders. 

“Relax. Shoulders down, not up around your ears.”

Beth exhales, letting her shoulders fall, but then she feels Rio press one hand against her spine. Even though her coat, it’s too much. She feels her stomach drop.

“Lean forward. Not much. Just enough to counteract the recoil.”

“Okay,” she says, and her tongue feels thick in her mouth. 

Suddenly she feels his fingers on the back of her thigh. His touch is gentle but firm as he says, “Move this foot a few more inches back. You need to be balanced.”

The second Beth lifts her foot to step backward, Rio’s hand disappears from her leg. Beth breathes a little easier at the same time that she instantly misses his touch. She shakes her head, trying to refocus herself. It doesn’t matter that Rio can make her feel this way—that he makes her feel like she’s on fire—

Rio steps beside her again and reaches out, gliding his fingers from her elbow, down over her wrist, over the soft skin on the back of her hand—until he stops and his fingers cover hers. Every muscle in Beth’s entire body feels clenched, but still, Rio tells her, “Tighten your grip.”

Nodding, Beth’s fingers constrict more firmly around the gun. She can feel sweat pooling underneath her palms.

“Now shoot.”

Beth uses the sight to aim again, and presses her finger against the trigger, trying hard not to move her hand in the process. She watches as the bullet pierces the target—and it’s not a _ good _ shot, but it at least hits within a few inches of where she was aiming.

“Better,” Rio grunts. “Again.”

She goes again and again, and bullet holes litter the area just above and below the head that she’s aiming for. Rio stands just behind her so that he can keep adjusting and readjusting her posture, and it feels like his hand is grazing her entire body even though it isn’t. Just the same three or four areas—over and over and _ over _ again. 

“Last bullet in that clip,” Rio says softly, his lips just over her shoulder and behind her ear.

“Alright,” Beth says, steeling herself.

“Make it good, ma.”

They both freeze on _ ma_, but Beth won’t let it rankle her. She _ won’t. _ If she can handle his hands all over her body, she can handle a pet name.

She squeezes the trigger, steadies herself against the recoil, and the bullet slashes through the air and—

“Where did it go?” Beth asks, squinting. She’d heard it hit the rubber wall behind the target, and she’s _ sure _ she didn’t miss this time—she definitely hit where she was aiming. Everything was _ perfect. _ But she can’t seem to see where her bullet pierced the paper. 

Gun still in hand, Beth starts walking, closing the gap between her and the hanging target. Rio follows. As if it would reveal anything to her, Beth peeks behind the paper to see the rubber wall filled with silver bullets.

“Look,” Rio says, and Beth comes back around to study what he’s looking at on the target. Rio fingers one of the bullet holes he’d made earlier. “See how this one’s bigger than the other ones? Guess you just overlapped.” 

It wasn’t where she was aiming, exactly, _ but it was within the target_. Beth reaches out to touch the hole, her finger brushing against Rio’s.

“I did it!” Beth giggles, proud and surprised as a little as a grin breaks out across her whole face.

“Yeah." Rio's lips curve up, and then he looks at her. _Really_ looks at her. Beth feels goosebumps prickle on her arms. They stare at each other, both of their smiles fading as the mood shifts into something else—something that makes Beth's heart jump into her throat 

Rio takes one more step toward her and Beth blinks up at him. His gaze is on her lips, and Beth instinctively reacts by wetting them with her tongue. Rio’s eyes flick back up to her own, boring into her, asking a question he won’t say aloud. He’s close enough and still enough that she can see each individual eyelash. Could count them if she wanted.

Her heart races as Rio reaches up and takes his finger to slowly push her hair out of her face. She shouldn’t, she _ shouldn’t_, but she sinks into it, leaning closer to him, eyes fluttering closed. 

Before she can change her mind, his lips crash onto hers—one of his hands snakes into her hair, the other squeezes her hip to pull her closer to him. Beth presses herself against his sharp edges—stands on her tiptoes—her own arms slide up his neck, and she’d link her hands, only she’s still holding her _ gun_. 

The thought makes her smile, amused, against his lips. Rio groans, kissing her hungrily, _ devouring _ her, his mouth hot and wet against hers. A moan escapes Beth, and Rio walks her three steps backward until her back is pressed against the cold metal wall. He links one of his hands with hers, pins it next to her head and—

And Beth remembers the last time he’d taken her against the warehouse wall. How cold and detached he’d been—and not only how, but _ why_—the way he _ had _ believed _ Dean_, the way he _ hadn’t _ believed in _ her. _

And really, nothing has changed.

_ If flirtin’s not workin’, there’s other methods. I’ll take it from here— _

It’s difficult because Rio’s kissing her with such intensity that her head’s pressed against the corrugated metal behind her, but Beth breaks the kiss. Rio’s breath is ragged, and he presses his forehead against hers, misinterpreting, and that only makes it worse.

“We—we shouldn’t,” Beth pants. She splays her fingers on his chest. Rio’s eyes are dark and his eyebrows are knit, his brain trying to catch up with his body as he rocks back from her gently pressing him away from her. Beth’s eyes drop to the floor. “I can’t.”

Her voice nearly breaks because she _ wants _ this, but she won’t let herself have it. The wound he inflicted from his doubt of her throbs, open and sore, _ all the time_. She hasn’t forgiven him—he hasn’t given her a reason to. As much as he lights her up, as much as he electrocutes every nerve-ending she has, Beth can’t go through it all again.

Rio wipes his thumb across his bottom lip, erasing her. His expression reveals nothing, but he nods once, turning away from her. His voice is gruff: “I’ll be in the car.”

Beth opens her mouth, she wants to explain, she wants to smooth things over, but no words come out. He shrinks the further he gets from her, and Beth exhales, frozen to the spot.

* * *

They don’t talk on the way home, either, but there’s no competition this time, no one waiting for the other to break the silence. The car hums and Beth looks out the window, unable to even force herself to look at Rio.

He finally speaks when he pulls into her driveway, but the only thing he says is, “Remember. You got a month.”

As soon as she shuts the car door, he’s gone.

* * *

And so the next three and a half weeks pass in somewhat of a blur. 

Dean properly moves out—meaning he stays with his mother and comes by and empties out his half of the closet, most of the garage, and the entirety of his office and the upstairs junk room to move into a storage unit. He tries to rope Beth in one last time, crying over an old photo album he’s found, but Beth just lets him sniffle alone in the dining room as she continues to cook dinner. When she finishes, she very politely reminds him that he should leave before she finishes setting the table—they don’t want to confuse the children, after all.

The kids’ reactions are mixed. Kenny is sullen and angry sometimes, while Emma gets clingier. Danny actually seems to _ relax _ a bit more, and Jane seems to forget anything’s amiss until bedtime. There’s more than one night where Jane can’t fall asleep and she begs and cries and pleads for her father. Beth nearly caves—she has the phone in her hand, but she can’t make the call. She knows, deep down, that Rio was right. This is hard, but it is part of the process. If she gives in now, Jane’s inability to accept the transition will only be prolonged. She has to sacrifice her daughter’s immediate comfort for her long-term stability. 

She _ hates _ it. 

It’s nothing, though, compared to when the kids are with Dean. He _ always _calls for Beth’s help, and saying no, that she can’t come over to soothe her babies or read them bedtime stories? That feels nearly impossible. 

Still, somehow, she manages. 

Then there are the drops, and washing the cash (and looking over her shoulder the entire time, looking to see if anybody’s watching). Annie’s apparently told Noah she knows he’s FBI, and while Beth was originally furious, she’s come to see the benefits. Despite the unlikelihood of it all, Noah has actually fallen for Annie in the ruse, and he does what he can to help them without jeopardizing his job. 

Noah tells Annie that the feds are getting all their ducks in a row, tracing as much stolen cash as they can to their source to try and make as solid of a case as possible. Apparently Turner knew that while they _ could _ move on Beth without a body, that it would be _ better _ to dot every _ i _ and cross every _ t_—he really didn’t want to leave anything to chance with the jury. 

They started with the wholesale lot dealerships, but large amounts of money move in and out of them so fast it didn’t end up revealing much—that money has changed hands and crossed state lines too rapidly. They eventually give it up. 

Now they were trying to cross-reference money that could be traced back to Cloud 9 with security cam footage, which was a slow and tedious process since everything was done in cash without any customer names to narrow down time slots. Noah said they basically had someone reviewing the 24-hour camera footage for the past 3 months (luckily earlier footage has been retaped over—meaning the clip show that the managers had shown when they were all banned was long gone). None of this was great for Beth, but it did buy her some time to try and figure out the Boomer problem. 

Annie spends more time at Marian’s, trying to suss out Boomer’s location—and she digs through Marian’s things, trying to find addresses and phone numbers of other family members Boomer may have contacted. Annie also manages to find a spare key to Boomer’s apartment, the former of which she pockets and the latter of which they search. It’s more horrifying than they’d imagined, but they don’t find much except for evidence that he’d done a hasty job of packing and getting the hell out of dodge. Beth finds old credit card statements and sees some recurring charges (The Pleasure Zone being one). They go to the porn shop to poke around and see if maybe they’ve seen him, but unsurprisingly, the employees give them a stony-faced answer that they keep their customers’ business _ private_. 

Beth’s convinced that Boomer _ must _ be at Marian’s, but Annie’s searched the place multiple times and come up with nothing. They’re at a standstill. 

Beth considers asking Rio for help. Panic seeps into her bloodstream knowing that once all the security footage is gone over, she’s done. Without an insider there to steal the evidence, though, she’s not sure how to wiggle out of this one. But as much as she’s convinced Rio would have a solution, she wants to prove that _ she _ can solve her own problems. She doesn’t need him to save her. She isn’t some damsel in distress. 

Plus, things are obviously tense between them. 

Beth sees him at gun practice and that’s it—that’s when he asks her to bring him his cut of washed cash, too. She makes sure that the gun lesson is first, because he always gets pissed off with how small it is, they always argue, and he always stalks off to his car (they make sure to drive separately now). 

Rio tries to be more detached, stand further away, say less each time, but sometimes when he hands her a new clip to reload, their hands brush. Each time it’s electric, burning, all-consuming. Each time she feels his touch linger long after he’s walked away—the burn fading to a dull throb. She hates herself for it. 

Outside of all of _ that, _Beth spends a lot of her time with Peter. Most of it’s at the store. Now that he’s committed to the idea of modernizing, Beth volunteers to help him have a large renovation sale to draw people into the store and tell them about its new direction. Beth also helps by doing a lot of research—and she comes up with several ideas to help him boost the store’s sales. First, she thinks he should focus on being a Toy & Game Store, and then he should host Game Nights, where families or twentysomethings can come in and test out popular games before committing to buying them. This will get kids in to stare longingly at the wall of toys, and expand his market to adults. 

Her research also tells her that many game stores are popular because of Magic: The Gathering drafts and D&D Nights (she has no idea what either of these things are, and ends up spending a not insignificant amount of time down the Wikipedia rabbit hole). Peter seems very impressed with Beth, and though he is at first resistant to making so many changes, he eventually comes to believe that it just might work. He decides to roll out the new changes slowly, vowing to start Family Game Night as soon as the renovation sale clears out enough room for him to stock up on new items.

During all of this, the two of them also spend a fair bit of time together outside of the store. They’re not dates, not exactly, but they go out for drinks, they go out for bites to eat, and there are a few nights that Beth invites him over and she makes him dinner. 

One of these nights, she has a buckle ready to share, and Peter admits that he always wished that he’d learned how to bake from his mother before she passed. This admission, coupled with the memories of Mrs. Schott rolling up her sleeves and teaching Beth how to make a pie from scratch or to make the perfect batch of fudge, makes tears prick at her eyes. She offers to teach him, and he says he would like that, and even though it’s late, and even though they’ve already had dessert, she pulls out her recipe book and finds the card for honey vanilla sablé cookies—something she distinctly remembers Mrs. Schott teaching her. They make them together, him whisking together flour, cardamom, and salt; her massaging the mixture of sugar and vanilla seeds with her hands. 

While the dough chills for two hours, they play a game of Scrabble, and Peter beats her (but she can tell he plays down to her level—keeping her always within 15-20 points of his score). 

He _ is _ still into model trains (she digs a little about it, and despite Annie and Ruby’s judgment, he really seems to feel no embarrassment about it—which Beth admires). 

Like Beth, Peter can play the piano—and he actually credits her for this, reminding her that she once let him come to a recital, that he’d always wanted to learn after that but had never bothered. After his divorce, he said, that it was one of the first things he pursued. He’s not very good, but he invites Beth over one night to his small apartment and she plays for the first time in god, nearly twenty years (and, as it turns out, she’s not very good anymore either). 

Once they go out to a movie together, towards the end of the three and a half weeks, and both of their arms end up on the same armrest, and their hands are so close together that she spends the entirety of the film focused on whether or not he might try to hold hers. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t—he’s waiting for her to be ready—but while Beth feels _ relieved_, she also feels a strange sting of disappointment.

She keeps avoiding having the conversation about Kostra, though. The more Peter talks about his grandfather and the legacy of the toy store, the more she gets the feeling that the answer is going to be _ no. _ On the other hand, though, she doesn’t have to do much lying about her job—Peter seems decidedly _ disinterested _ in learning too much about the American pharmaceutical industry, making Beth think he has a serious distrust of it after what happened to his mother. 

Every night before she falls asleep, Beth thinks about that warehouse kiss. She _ tries _ not to think about him, but when she lies in the darkness on her side of the bed (unable to forget that it’s the same spot _ he _ had once laid in when she’d placed his cut on the bedside table and asked him to leave) she slips into that dreamlike state between being awake and being asleep, and it’s like she’s practically _ reliving _ the kiss before her eyes jolt open and she feels her heartbeat in her ears.

So Beth’s torn, and she’s _ guilty_, and she’s _ anxious_, because she thinks she might regret jeopardizing the way Peter looks at her by asking him about the drugs—but she feels bone-deep terrified that _ failure _ to secure the Kostra deal could cost her the thin thread she’s hanging onto with Rio.

_ What if he wants nothing to do with her after this? _

And _ those _ are just the feelings buried underneath all the ones she has about trying to hunt down her rotten egg and avoid felony arrest. 

* * *

The renovation sale at the toy store goes off without a hitch just a few days before Beth’s one-month time limit is going to be up, and Beth decides to invite Peter out—this time _ she’ll _ choose the place (it’s not that she’s a snob, it’s just—it would be nice to go somewhere that’s not a chain restaurant).

She prefers the bar cart in her living room (it’s cheaper) so Mayor is really the only bar she’s frequented with any regularity in years, but she’s not about to go _ there_. That’s… that’s just a spot for her and Rio. 

And it’s not like she wants to bump into him. 

So Beth doesn’t really have a place she wants to go. Yes, sometimes she and the girls go out Finnegan’s—but technically it’s a restaurant, even though it has a good cocktail list. Anyway, Finnegan’s is across town, so Beth pulls out her phone and Yelps _ Bars Near Me, _picking the first one with four and a half stars.

This is how they end up at some trendy downtown lounge on a Friday night together. The place is cute: white brick walls, a soft purple glow of light. She could do without the industrial metal posts on either side of the stage where a live band plays some indie music, but there are soft blue chesterfield couches in one corner that she thinks might be cute to replace the one she’s got in her den (she’s over it, and there are enough beer spills from Dean on it that it’s time for it be retired—maybe she’ll offer it to him, see if he wants to move it to Judith’s garage).

“Interesting vibe,” Peter says, lifting his white russian to his lips. They just managed to snag a table before it started getting busy, and now a woman jostles past him, almost bumping him. 

“You don’t like it,” Beth states, a little embarrassed for picking it. She should’ve looked more thoroughly at the Yelp reviews—

“No, I’m flexible,” Peter says reassuringly. “And I like the music. Just different from my usual haunts.”

“Next time we can just go to Applebee’s—”

“No, Beth, it’s fine. I’m having fun with you.” Peter reaches out to touch her wrist across the table again. Beth’s fingers flinch—in alarm or in pleasant surprise, Beth doesn’t know—but this time, he doesn’t linger. 

_ Considerate, _Beth thinks, a little fondly, a little not. 

“It’s good to try new things.” Peter smiles, and then his eye catches something behind Beth. “Hey, isn’t that your friend?”

Beth’s spine goes rigid, and she stops breathing for a second before she slowly turns to look at a small crowd of people at the front entrance.

_ Rio’s _ there. He’s wearing a jean button up—lighter than one he usually wears, his sleeves rolled, and it looks like he’s even freshly shaven. Beth’s mouth feels very dry all of the sudden.

“I think it is. I remember the neck tattoo—I remember being a little surprised that—”

_ Is he here to remind her about Kostra? _ Beth wonders wildly, angrily. _ Because I _ know _ that I only have three days and— _

But then their eyes meet, and Beth sees that Rio’s _ widen _ a little bit before he resettles into indifference and—and Beth has a flicker of doubt: _Is this a coincidence?_

“Yeah,” Beth says, finding it difficult to swallow around her tongue. She tips her head back to take a long drink of her bourbon, and then several things happen at once.

Peter says, voice cheery, “Oh, the lounge is really packed—we should invite them over, so they can skip the wait.”

He says this _ at the same time _ that he starts waving Rio over, _ before _ Beth has had a chance to say anything—before she can stop it.

This is also the moment that Beth’s turning back to Peter, just enough to glimpse his wave out of one corner of her eye, just enough for her stomach to drop—only suddenly she feels ice in her veins as she’s jerked back to the front of the lounge. 

_ Invite _ them _ over? _

For the first time she notices, _ really _ notices the woman standing _ next _ to Rio.

She’s _ gorgeous_. Taller than Beth, and skinnier, with dark skin and dark eyes, a beautiful head of loosely curled black hair. She’s stylish—she wears black high-waisted, wide-legged slacks with red pumps and a tucked-in white sleeveless blouse. She wears the kind of things Beth might dare to try if she had a different body than the one she does.

_ Maybe they’re not together, _Beth thinks, the thought bubbling frantically up through the mush her brain is melting into. 

Only then she sees Rio smile smugly before he strides forward, accepting Peter’s invitation. As he does, he leans down to say something to the woman—his mouth pressing against her ear, his hand sliding to the small of her back.

**Author's Note:**

> [This](https://whatson.ae/dubai/2019/04/district-to-open-its-doors-in-jbr-this-month/) is what I imagine the lounge that Beth & Peter visit.
> 
> [Aja Naomi King](https://www.interviewmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/img-aja-naomi-king_181114757446-749x1000.jpg) is the actress I envision when I think of Rio's date.
> 
> Ahhhh. I know updates have been slowing down, but school starts next week and I know it will get tougher from here! I have almost everything all mapped out, but I just wanted to give you all a heads up that updates will be slower now as I try to juggle working & writing at the same time!


End file.
